Vain
by GrapplingHook
Summary: Dipper decides that he wants to start being an adult, but first he has to look the part. So when he decides it's time to do something about his appearance, he undergoes a change overnight, things backfire, and he learns that a certain family member knows what he's talking about when he says some things are better left untouched. ONE-SHOT


"But Grunkle Stan!" Dipper whined, nearly ready to stamp his foot on the ground due to his displeasure in his great-uncle's decision.

"No buts! Stan said sternly, yet tiredly, on this particularly quiet Thursday night in Gravity Falls, Oregon.

Soos walked into the living room. A backpack was strapped around both of his shoulders and a tired expression on his face. He was prepared to sleep standing up instead of walking back to his Abuelita's house. He glanced around the room before opening his mouth. Attentively sitting on the couch was Grunkle Stan, who was glaring at Dipper with weary eyes. Mabel was sitting at the foot of the couch on the shag carpeting, half watching the display and half watching the newest episode of Ducktective, which was blabbering on about how the Duck was going to be put on probation because he ate a piece of evidence. Dipper was standing closely in front of Mabel, looking angrily at Stan. He had a scornful look on his face and was clearly passionate about whatever he was complaining about.

Soos finally inserted himself into the conversation. "How are we supposed to sit then?"

Mabel giggled as Stan slapped his own face gently and turned to his employee. "Soos, you have no idea what we're talking about, do you?"

"Not a clue dude." Soos said with a smile before scratching the back of his head. "Mind if I head home Mr. Pines? I'm exhausted." Soos added in quickly.

Stan thought and contemplated for a second. "Sure..." He sounded almost reluctant to let Soos go home, but it was obvious that he was exhausted. "I'll see you tomorrow. Try and get some rest."

Soos yawned. "Sure thing Mr. Pines." He said between his deep breaths of air. Soos left the Pines to argue among themselves as he walked out of the Mystery Shack and made his way over to his Abuelita's house.

"Come on!" Dipper whined again after Soos left the room. "It's not like anything _bad_ is going to happen."

Grunkle Stan chuckled. "Oh, you don't think?" Stan leaned back in the couch, knowing Dipper was going to be in for a shock, and that he would easily win this disagreement.

Dipper could sense Grunkle Stan's confidence and raised an eyebrow. "Yeah... I'm pretty sure." He said cautiously.

Mabel was able to unstick her glued-on stare at the television and looked up at her brother. "Dipper, I don't see why you're making such a big fuss about this... it's not like you even have anything to work with." She giggled at her comment and looked at Stan for approval, who modestly gave her a nod of his head.

"Your sister's right." Grunkle Stan said. "But, I'll let you try it." Stan pushed himself off the couch with a grunt and stood up. He was smiling devilishly as he walked over towards the doorway. Stan turned around and stared Dipper straight in the eye. "Beware of the consequences boy!" Without showing any emotion in his voice, Stan left the room.

The twins could hear shuffling and clanging upstairs in a closet by the bathroom as they stared at the ceiling above them while the sounds echoed throughout the wooden walls of the Mystery Shack. Dipper looked over at Mabel. She shrugged and then turned her attention back to the television, which was scrolling credits up the screen faster than her darting eyes could keep up with.

The rustling ceased upstairs and the twins could hear Stan walking heavily down the stairs as the steps creaked and moaned throughout the house. Dipper watched the doorway as Grunkle Stan came into view, holding the two objects he had begged for. The boy in his red pajamas walked up to Stan and outstretched his hand to grab the two items his great-uncle was holding on to. But before Dipper could snatch them out of his hands, Grunkle Stan raised his arms out of Dipper's reach and held them well above his grand nephew's head.

"Hey, what gives?" Dipper complained, not bothering to jump for the two things Grunkle Stan was holding.

"Are you sure you want to risk what you have now? All for this?" Grunkle Stan sighed. "You could just end up..."

Dipper cut him off immediately. He had already made up his mind and jumped to an immediate conclusion. "Yes, yes. I'm sure." Dipper reached forward as Grunkle Stan lowered his arms to give Dipper a razor and a can of shaving cream. Dipper snagged the two items and rushed upstairs to the bathroom.

Grunkle Stan yelled down from the living room as Dipper ran up the steps. "Don't come crying to me when you end up with as much back hair as I do... except on your face." Grunkle Stan shook his head, in disapproval with Dipper's decision to give shaving a try. He knew that Dipper wanted to be more mature, but this was the wrong way to do that. Dipper would learn his lesson the hard way... and Stan figured that was better than nothing.

Mabel stood up and brushed off her purple night-gown. "But Grunkle Stan, Dipper doesn't have white hair."

Grunkle Stan turned and stared at Mabel with slightly angry eyes, just to push the point across that he wasn't that old. "I think it's time for you to go to bed." He demanded.

"Awww." Mabel said in disappointment, as she hung her head and grabbed her stuffed tiger that had been neatly sitting on the floor next to her. She held it close as she brushed by Stan and walked upstairs to the bathroom to brush her teeth.

Stan sighed and walked over to the couch where he slumped in the seat and switched between channels until he found an old re-run of Grandpa, The Kid. Stan tossed the remote to the side of the couch and yawned as the television flickered and droned on about someone stealing the old man's horse. Grunkle Stan struggled to keep his eyes open as they fluttered shut and he began to snore soundly.

Mabel walked into the bathroom with her stuffed tiger and watched Dipper as he began to spray some shaving cream on his hand. "Do you even know what you're doing?" Mabel asked, reaching for her toothbrush and then for the container of mint toothpaste.

"Yeah, I've seen people shave on television all the time." Dipper stated as he began to plop the globs of white foam onto his face before lathering it around so it nearly covered every square inch of his face. Mabel continued brushing as she watched Dipper reach for the razor.

"You look like Santa!" Mabel exclaimed happily as she spit out her saliva and placed her toothbrush back into the holder. Mabel then took the can of shaving cream and quickly sprayed the foam into her hand before Dipper could react. Mabel plopped the glob of foam on her chin. "Hey Dipper, guess who I am." Mabel did her best to try to impersonate one of Gravity Falls' craziest residents. "Oh Donkeyspittle." Mabel couldn't help but giggle at her McGucket impression.

Dipper did his best to ignore his sister as he carefully touched the blade of the razor to the top of his cheek. The metal felt cold to the touch and he tensed up a little. Dipper gulped as he cautiously slid the razor down the side of his cheek, picking up some dead skin cells and the shaving cream that was lathered on his face.

Dipper rinsed the razor off under the running faucet and brought it back up to the other side of his face. He stuck his tongue gently out of his mouth in an attempt to concentrate while he slid the razor down his skin. Mabel could only watch as she began to wipe some of the shaving cream from off her chin and plopped it into the sink.

Dipper continued his cycle of shave, rinse and repeat until he was down to the last patch of shaving cream that had foamed up on his chin. "Let's see, was it up the chin, or down?" Dipper mumbled to himself.

Mabel yawned, tired from watching what had to be the most boring thing ever. "What about side to side? Or diagonally?" She blindly suggested, stretching her limbs and rubbing her soft stuffed tiger against her face.

He decided to go down his chin with the razor. When he started to swipe down, he felt the blade tug on his skin, and as a result, he cut himself. Dipper dropped the razor into the sink and winced as his cut began to sting and bleed slowly. Dipper flustered and fumbled with the faucet handle before getting it to spray out warm water. He splashed the water over his face to try to relieve some of the pain and to wash off the rest of the shaving cream. However, with each splash of warm water his cut seemed to sting more and more.

"Do you want me to get Grunkle Stan?" Mabel asked, half out the door and ready to make her way downstairs.

"No!" Dipper shouted. "I can't have him find out that I cut myself." Dipper placed his hand over the cut and watched in the mirror as blood slowly dripped through his fingers and down his hand. "I'll never hear the end of it." He slightly whispered to himself. So Dipper closed his eyes and gritted his teeth while he splashed more water on his face and applied pressure to his minor battle wound in an attempt to stop or at the least, slow down the bleeding.

"I'll be in bed." Mabel notified her brother as she started to walk towards the attic with her stuffed tiger in one hand while the other was gently massaging her droopy eyelids.

Dipper shut the bathroom door and locked it while he waited a few minutes for his cut to cease its bleeding. After that time had passed, Dipper finished shaving his chin, this time going in the opposite direction, while avoiding the scraped portion of skin that laid across the center of his chin. He smiled and looked at himself in the mirror. Nothing physically had changed, minus the cut, but Dipper felt... different for some reason. He felt as if he was becoming older and more mature. He smiled in the mirror, winked playfully at his reflection and then left the bathroom to go to bed for the night. Dipper hopped up on his soft mattress and whispered "Goodnight" to Mabel, who could only return a soft snore.

* * *

Dipper awoke drowsily in his bed the next morning when he heard tapping on the triangle-shaped glass window. He slowly rolled out of bed to find a woodpecker banging on the glass with its pointy beak. So Dipper loosely threw the journal at the window to shoo the animal away, an endeavour which was completed successfully after the book slammed up against the glass, scaring the bird from its perch on the windowsill. Dipper looked over at Mabel's empty bed and rubbed his eyes in an attempt to wake up. Scratching his stomach Dipper walked out of the attic and headed towards the bathroom.

Dipper swung the door open to the bathroom and stumbled over to the sink, turning on the faucet and placing his hands underneath the running water to splash onto his face. The cold water numbed his skin as it dripped from his face. However, almost immediately, Dipper realized something wasn't quite right. The twelve year old boy looked up at the mirror directly across from him and jumped back in horror at the image that appeared in front of him.

Dipper screamed and held his hands up to his face, rubbing them furiously over a brown beard that had somehow grown on his face overnight along with a bushy mustache that sat above his upper lip. "Ahhh!" Dipper shouted loudly again, opening the cabinet up and frantically searching for the razor and shaving cream Grunkle Stan had given to him last night.

"Dipper!" Mabel yelled worriedly as she ran up the steps to the bathroom. "Are you okay?" She said as she stood in the doorway, looking concerned over her brother's sudden panic attack. Her brother closed the cabinet and turned to her, exposing his face and all the hair on it. Mabel staggered back in complete shock. "What happened!"

"I don't know!" Dipper responded back to his sister with a razor and can of shaving cream in his hands. "But I'm getting rid of it!"

Mabel walked up to her brother and examined his beard as he readied himself with a palm full of shaving cream. "You look like old man McGucket." She hooted, beginning to laugh. "Only without the white hair." Mabel went to touch Dipper's beard, stroking it smoothly. "It's like you have a porcupine on your face." She giggled, petting his beard with both of her hands now.

"Quit it Mabel!" Dipper shouted with a hair covered smile, pushing her hands away from his face as she attempted to caress the prickly brown facial hair some more.

After Dipper had finally managed to get his face far enough away from his grabby sister, he began to reach towards his facial hair to lather a glob of white and puffy shaving cream onto it. However, before he could, Grunkle Stan stood in the doorway of the bathroom and coughed loudly to get the twins' attention. Dipper and Mabel both looked over to see their tired Grunkle leaning against the frame apathetically, not surprised to see a mountain of hair hanging on Dipper's face.

"What did I tell you?" He said in monotone while inspecting Dipper's beard from the door.

Dipper hung his head and stood there silently.

"Now you're stuck with that until _I_ go out and get an electric razor." Grunkle Stan said, scratching the gray shadow on his chin.

Dipper opened his mouth in protest. "Why can't I use this?" He held up the disposable razor to show his great-uncle.

Grunkle Stan pointed to the razor in Dipper's hand. "You'll dull the blades or get it caught in your new facial hair. And I don't really feel like having to cut part of your beard off to make you look even more ridiculous." Dipper frowned and lowered his head again. "Now go downstairs and help Soos and Wendy clean up the gift shop. In the meanwhile, I have some errands to run. If I see that the place is spotless when I get back... maybe I'll consider taking you out to get an electric razor." Grunkle Stan left Dipper in the room while he went down the stairs with a slight grin before heading out of the Mystery Shack to drive into town.

Dipper glanced at Mabel and began to stare. "What are you staring at?" Mabel said, turning around to see an empty doorway. She spun back and glared curiously at her brother.

"Does Wendy like guys with facial hair?" Dipper asked, walking by Mabel and closing the door gently so that their talking couldn't be heard by the employees downstairs.

"I don't know." Mabel shrugged. "I doubt it makes that big of a dif..."

Dipper cut her off. "Mabel, this is huge!" He whispered loudly. "This could make or break my chances with her." Dipper rubbed his rough chin before an idea popped into his head. He grinned a little as he placed his arm around his sister and rested his hand on her shoulder. "How fast can you knit?"

* * *

"Soos, I think you missed a spot." Wendy said from her perch behind the counter. Her mud caked boots were propped up next to the cash register and she was neglecting yet another customer that had walked up to her. "Also, this guy needs your help finding an extra-large... or something." She said, hiding behind her magazine of new and upcoming bands.

"It was an extra small!" A small old woman said from the other side of the counter as she threw the t-shirt she had at Wendy and she stormed out of the gift shop.

Wendy shook the t-shirt off her head and threw it across the room, landing it in a box next to Soos. "Dude, could you not add to the mess."

Wendy glanced up from her magazine briefly. "Sorry man." As she looked up, Dipper walked into the room with a widely grinning Mabel. He was wearing his usual orange shirt, blue vest, shorts and pine tree hat. But, in addition to his every day outfit, wrapped around his face was a freshly knit scarf so that a pink and white striped pattern covered every square inch from his neck to beneath his eyes. "Woah, nice scarf there Dipper." Wendy said with a smile while removing her boots from the counter and clearly taking an interest about why Dipper was wearing a girls' scarf.

"Thanks." Dipper did his best cough. "I have a cold and didn't want to get you guys sick."

Soos walked up to Dipper and patted him on the back. "Thanks dude, how considerate of you." Dipper glanced up at Soos with a brow raised before walking over to the corner to grab a broom. While her brother wasn't looking Mabel, pulled Soos down next to her and whispered into his ear. "No way dude." He whispered back, audibly enough so that Wendy could hear, but not Dipper because the scarf was covering his ears and muffled Soos' voice. the handyman stood up when Dipper turned around to start furiously sweeping. "Hey Wendy." Soos said, walking up to her with some sort of intent on his mind. "Do you think I'd look cooler if I grew a beard and a mustache?"

Wendy thought for a second and then started laughing hysterically. Dipper could hear the loud laughing of his crush and stopped his sweeping to pay more attention to her answer. "Heck no. Facial hair is a big no on a guy... unless you're like fifty or something. I mean, imagine if Dipper had a beard." Wendy started laughing at the image she had implanted in her mind while Dipper blushed and became as pink as the scarf he was wearing. Wendy called over to Dipper, who was now staring at her. "Hey Dipper, you don't have a beard under there, do you?" She laughed, wiping tears of joy from her eyes. Dipper blushed some more, to the point where he found himself angrily walking out of the room, mumbling under his breath while he stomped towards the living room. Wendy looked at Soos and Mabel, who could only stare at each other with some worry. "Was it something I said?" She asked, clueless of the emotional damage she had accidentally triggered.

Grunkle Stan opened the door to the gift shop and was immediately taken aback by the sight of his two employees and great niece gawking at one another. "Hey, I'm not paying you three to stand around and talk!" He shouted. "Now get to work and help me find my license, which may or may not be expired... by twenty years.

"That's sad Mr. Pines." Wendy said as she returned to her comfortable, feet up, leaned back position behind her magazine at the counter.

"Not as sad as everyone else will be when I fire you." Stan said back smartly. "Now start searching!"

Wendy rolled her eyes and began halfheartedly searching around the edge of the gift shop... that was, until Dipper came storming in. "Have you seen my journal?" He asked angrily.

Grunkle Stan walked over to Dipper and cocked his head to the side as he examined the scarf his nephew still had wrapped around his face. "Actually, I think I wrapped my license in this." Before Dipper could react Grunkle Stan started tugging on the scarf, ripping it off Dipper's face and sending them both to the floor. Dipper sat there wide eyed and in horror as Mabel, Soos and Wendy were staring at him like he was a freak. Leaving his pine tree hat on the ground, Dipper got up quickly and ran upstairs as fast as he could, wiping the tears that were falling from his eyes because of his embarrassing situation.

Mabel started to chase after him when Grunkle Stan stuck out his hand and held her back. "Let me handle this.." He said, pushing himself up off the ground and dusting his clothes off.

Stan slowly walked out of the gift shop with Mabel, Soos and Wendy's eyes following him until he was out of sight. As he climbed the stairs he could hear Dipper's sobs from the bathroom, echoing throughout the entire hallway and slapping his great uncle in the face. Stan sighed as he knocked on the door with a frown on his face. "Open up kid, we need to talk."

"I don't want to talk to you." Dipper sniveled back through the crack at the bottom of the wooden door.

Grunkle Stan took a deep breath and rubbed the back of his head. "I know you don't want to talk, but at least hear me out." Grunkle Stan waited for a response, but there was only silence on the other side. "I know you want to act mature and be older... but there comes a point in your life where you would give up anything to be young again."

On the other side of the door Dipper wiped his eyes with his sleeve and stood up, his hand on the cold gold colored door knob. Grunkle Stan continued. "I've long since passed that point, but I've been lucky enough to experience both for a while in my advanced age. You shouldn't rush growing up. Live in the moment. When it's time to grow facial hair and shave it off, then you'll know. The time, however, isn't now."

Dipper opened the door, allowing Grunkle Stan to enter the room and hug him as the door shut behind them. "I'm sorry Grunkle Stan, I should have listened."

"That's another thing. Learn from your mistakes and the mistakes of others." Grunkle Stan with a smile as Dipper buried his bristly face into Stan's shirt. Stan pulled Dipper back and smiled as he looked him in the eye. "Now how about we get this hair off your face."

Dipper beamed back. "I'd thought you would never ask." He laughed.

Grunkle Stan chuckled as he turned on the faucet and ran his hand under warm water. However, Dipper noticed his great uncle didn't have a razor out. "Where' the electric razor?" He asked.

"Oh, I won't be needing that." Grunkle Stan rubbed his wet and warm hands all over Dipper's face, lathering every inch of his cheeks, chin, and upper lip with the warm water. Then, he gripped onto Dipper's beard and tugged, ripping the entire ensemble off in one piece.

"Oww!" Dipper shouted, rubbing his red cheeks to try and sooth them.

"Fake beard and mustache. Comes in handy, doesn't it?" Grunkle Stan laughed, walking out of the bathroom and leaving Dipper there in a daze.


End file.
